Money Saving Duo

Discovering how to live a glorious life on less

money saving tips

Purchasing Your First Home? Money Savvy Tips to Keep In Mind

by

Purchasing your first home is an exciting milestone, but it can also be a significant financial investment. Saving money during this process is crucial to make the most of your budget and ensure a smooth transition into homeownership. In this blog post, we will provide you with essential tips to help you save money when looking to purchase your first home. By following these practical strategies, you can maximize your savings and make a more informed decision.

Money Savvy Tips to Keep in Mind When Purchasing Your First Home

Start Saving Early

One of the best ways to save money when purchasing your first home is to start saving as early as possible. This allows you to build a substantial down payment, which can lower your monthly mortgage payments and potentially eliminate the need for private mortgage insurance (PMI). Set up a separate savings account specifically for your home purchase and contribute to it regularly. Automating your savings can be an effective way to ensure consistent progress.

Establish a Realistic Budget

Before diving into the home-buying process, it’s essential to establish a realistic budget. Consider your income, expenses, and financial goals to determine how much you can comfortably afford. Factor in not only the down payment but also other costs such as closing costs, moving expenses, and potential renovations or repairs. By having a clear budget in mind, you can avoid the temptation of overspending and ensure you’re financially prepared for homeownership.

Be sure to look for a high interest rate savings account to maximize your savings. Right now, Wealthfront is offering 4.55% APY (annual percentage yield) – one of the highest rates of return we’ve seen. Sign up for an account through our referral link and we’ll both get a +0.50% bump on the current APY.

Improve Your Credit Score

Your credit score plays a significant role in determining the interest rate on your mortgage. A higher credit score can qualify you for more favorable loan terms and potentially save you thousands of dollars over the life of your loan. Start by reviewing your credit report for any errors or discrepancies and address them promptly. Make all payments on time and reduce your credit card balances to improve your credit utilization ratio. Avoid opening new lines of credit or making major purchases before applying for a mortgage, as this can negatively impact your credit score.

Shop Around for the Best Mortgage

When it comes to securing a mortgage, don’t settle for the first offer you receive. Shop around and compare rates and terms from different lenders to ensure you’re getting the best deal. Even a slightly lower interest rate can save you a significant amount of money over time. Consider working with a mortgage broker who can help you navigate the process and negotiate on your behalf. Be sure to read and understand the terms and conditions of any mortgage agreement before signing.

Consider First-Time Homebuyer Programs and Assistance

Many governments, organizations, and financial institutions offer programs specifically designed to assist first-time homebuyers. These programs often provide financial assistance, down payment assistance, or reduced interest rates. When we purchased our first house, we qualified for such a program and this helped us afford our first home.

Research and explore the options in your area to see if you qualify for any programs. Additionally, some employers offer employer-assisted housing programs or down payment assistance as part of their employee benefits. Take advantage of these opportunities to save money and make homeownership more attainable.

If you live in Michigan, first time homebuyers may want to look at the following programs to see if they qualify:

  • MI Home Loan – eligible individuals may qualify for a $10,000 loan
  • Mortgage Credit Certificate Program – first time homebuyers may also be eligible for a federal tax credit which would allow qualified homebuyers the ability to credit 20% of their annual mortgage interest paid against their year-end tax liability.

Other programs to consider include:

  • Chase Bank’s Grant Program for eligible homebuyers. These grants range from $2,500 – $5,000 and Veterans may be eligible for additional benefits.

Be Mindful of Additional Costs

When budgeting for your first home purchase, it’s essential to consider not only the upfront costs but also the ongoing expenses. Property taxes, homeowners insurance, maintenance, and utilities are all ongoing costs that should be factored into your budget. Consider the location and condition of the property when estimating potential maintenance costs. Look for energy-efficient homes or appliances to save on utility bills over time.

There is nothing wrong with renting. If you are looking for something with more of a ‘known’ cost or something that allows a little more flexibility, renting may be the right option for you. The mortgage cost is usually the bare-minimum cost you will spend on a house each month and this is important to keep in mind. Yes, a house can be a good investment, but there are a lot of factors to keep in mind when making this big decision. Make the decision that’s best for you and the money goals you hope to achieve.

Purchasing your first home is a significant financial decision, and saving money throughout the process is vital. By following these tips, starting from early savings and establishing a realistic budget, to improving your credit score and shopping around for the best mortgage, you can save money and make a more informed choice.

Want to Save Money Fast and Jumpstart Your Emergency Fund? Here’s How to Save $1,000 in 30 Days

by

Are you trying to save money fast? Saving a $1,000 for your emergency fund is a good goal to shoot for. Whether you are able to make big changes or small, here are some of our top tips to help you spend less and save $1,000 in 30 days:

An image with text that says "How to Save $1,000 in 30 Days" over a hand dropping coins into a jar

Start by looking at your budget

Before you can reach any of your money goals, its important to make sure you look at your budget. Don’t have a budget? Then your goal is to set one. Budgets may seem scary if you aren’t use to having one, but they are a really great tool to help you maximize how you use your money.

Not Sure How to Budget? Start With These Four Simple Steps

Once you have your budget set up, look at where you might be able to cut back spending. Are there any unnecessary expenses that are either eating away at your savings or preventing you from putting money into savings? If so, determine how much you are willing to cut back on those expenses and total those up. Put that amount towards your $1,000 goal.

Once you have cut back on those unnecessary expenses, look for other categories you may be able to spend less in by making some simple changes in your daily routine. You may be surprised at how many of these small changes add up.

For example: If you spend any money on food that you don’t make at home, this could be an area where you could save quite a bit if you are willing to give it a try. Instead of dining in at restaurants or ordering takeout, consider making meals at home and packing leftovers when you can. You don’t have to be the world’s greatest chef to make this work for you – stick with simple recipes and add the money you save to your emergency fund. And who knows, you may find that that this is a habit that sticks.

Cancel the memberships you never use and rethink the ones you do

Every few months, our family takes a look at what memberships we have – especially our streaming memberships – and cut whichever ones we aren’t using as much as we used to. If you are looking to save $1,000 in 30 days, this might be something worth doing if you haven’t considered doing so or haven’t done in awhile. Other examples of memberships to reevaluate include:

  • Gym memberships. If you have a gym membership and haven’t gone in awhile, cancel it.
  • Magazine subscriptions. Cancel magazine subscriptions and other publications that aren’t essential to your life.
  • If you haven’t cut cable yet, now might be a great time to do that. Switch over to streaming and you’ll save whether you choose a free streaming platform or one with a monthly subscription. Just remember, to keep it in budget.
  • Subscription boxes. Whether you cancel or delay your subscription box, this could be another way to save money if you are currently receiving these on a regular basis.
  • Cell phones and Internet. Do you really need the plan you have or can you shop around for a better price? This may be a way to save a little extra money each month.
  • Insurance policies. When is the last time you shopped around for insurance? Sometimes when you shop around, you can find better prices without sacrificing on coverage. If its been awhile since you’ve done this, this might be a great time to start asking around.

Don’t buy more groceries than you need; eat out less and have meals you can make quickly and cheaply at home.

It’s easy to get carried away when you’re shopping for groceries. You may find yourself picking up extra items, thinking you’ll use them later in the week or month. But if you don’t actually use those items, they’ll just go bad and end up costing money!

It’s better to plan your meals ahead of time and only buy what you need for those meals–no more, no less. If there are certain ingredients that would be useful in other recipes but aren’t needed right now (such as garlic or spices), add those things onto a separate list so that you remember to buy them later on down the road when needed again by another meal you are planning to make.

Be smart about shopping for groceries and essentials like toilet paper, paper towels and detergent.

If you’re like most people, your grocery bills can add up quickly. The good news is there are plenty of ways to save money on groceries:

  • Make a list and stick to it. This is an incredibly helpful way to stay in budget when shopping for grocery and household essentials.
  • Use cash back apps on your phone. We have a whole list of apps that we use to save money when grocery shopping. Many of them allow us to cash out through our PayPal account while others let us cash out for gift cards we can use for later purchases. Either way, this can be a helpful way to put more money aside for your emergency fund.

Consider what assets you can let go of

Saving is great, but sometimes its still not enough to kick start your emergency fund – especially if you don’t have much wiggle room in your budget to begin with. If this is you, it may be time to consider letting go of some of your personal belongings that you are comfortable parting with. Can you sell them on Facebook marketplace or host a garage sale? Selling items that are still in relatively good condition can be a great way to jumpstart your emergency fund.

Start a side hustle or consider whether its time to ask for a raise

Another way to bring more money into your account on a regular basis is to either start a side hustle or consider whether its time to ask for a raise. Both options can potentially bring in more money on a regular basis to your account and you can set this aside towards your emergency fund. Side hustles are great if you just need a short term infusion of cash – like if you’re trying to quickly put aside an extra $1,000 in 30 days. Asking for a raise may result in more money coming in on a more consistent basis and if you haven’t asked for one in awhile, maybe now is the time.

You can save money fast by making small changes

You can save money fast by making small changes to your spending habits. For example, canceling the membership you never use or adding cash back apps on your phone are easy ways to make more room in your budget for funds you can put towards your emergency fund. Don’t have a lot of margin to begin with? Consider selling some of your personal items you are comfortable letting go of or starting a side hustle that works with your schedule. Any of these steps can help you work towards putting money aside for something unexpected.

Conclusion

You don’t have to be an expert to save money fast. Identify ways you can reduce what you spend and reallocate that money to your emergency fund. If that’s not enough to reach $1,000 in 30 days, you may need to look at ways to bring more money in. This could include picking up a side hustle or selling some of your personal items you are ready to say goodbye to. Either way, these steps can help you reach your goal of saving $1,000 in 30 days, and have a better idea of how much money comes in and goes out each month–which means you can start saving even more!

8 Ways to Save Money on Gas for Your Car

by

With gas prices on the rise, you may be looking for ways to save on fuel. Discover a few top recommendations we’ve received to help make every dollar at the pump stretch its furthest.

Our family last summer on a camping adventure!

If you want to save money on gas, here are a few simple ways to get started:

Scope out the best price at the pump and get cash back on each fill up. One of my favorite cash back apps, Checkout 51, offers you great deals not only on groceries and prescriptions, but gas too! Pull up the gas tab and you’ll see the price of gas in your area and the amount per gallon in cash back you’ll get. We typically get ~$0.10-$0.15 per gallon, sometimes up to $0.25, in cash back through this app and can withdraw it by either PayPal or check once a $20 balance in cash back is hit.

Be a more relaxed driver. This one might take some practice, but is another great way to save on the number of trips you’ll need to make to the pump. In fact, the US Department of Energy indicates that if you ‘hit the breaks’ on aggressive driving – hard breaking, quick accelerating and speeding – you can reduce your gas mileage by 15-30% at highway speeds and 10-40% in stop-and-go traffic. That’s an equivalent gas savings of $0.36-$0.44 per gallon. Need some help, newer cars have a helpful gas mileage feature on their dashboard console.

Not sure what speed you should go? The most fuel efficient speeds have been found to be between 55 and 65 mph.

Check Your Tires. It may not seem like routinely checking your tires would impact your gas use; however, maintaining proper tire pressure will make an impact on the frequency of your fill ups. Underinflated tires can actually increase consumption by up to 3%.

Clean out your car. If your family is like mine, it doesn’t take very long for things to accumulate inside our vehicle. Those items not only clutter up the inside, but add to to overall weight of the vehicle. The more weight, the harder your car has to work and thus the more gas it has to use. Get rid of the heavy stuff just sitting there.

Park further away. No one likes parking further away. Especially in Michigan, in winter. But if you are able to find a spot more quickly by parking a little further away, do it! Not only will this use less fuel than if you spend your time circling around a parking lot or a street looking for a spot, but walking a little further is good for your body too.

Carpool when you can. This one may not be realistic for every family – I know its not for mine; however, it is when I think about some of the work trips that I take. When possible, I try to carpool with others from my office if we have a meeting outside the office we need to attend together.

Work from home if you can. Again, this one might not be realistic for everyone; but if your work allows you to work from home even just occasionally, this can help you save on gas too.

Join a Fuel Rewards Program. Another way to save a little money on gas fill ups is to join a fuel rewards program. Many gas stations offer them. For example, we save $0.05 per gallon at Marathon gas stations through their fuel rewards program. If you shop at a certain brand of gas stations more often than others, this can be another way to save a little more when you fill up on gas.

Hope this helps you save a few bucks at the pump. Have any additional ways you save? Share them in the comments.

Our Top Ten Money Saving Tips As A Family of Six

by

Please note: This post contains affiliate links which means that when you click on them, we may be financially compensated for referring you there. We just thought you should know.

Here’s some exciting news… our family became an ‘official’ family of six in 2020!

The Money Saving Duo Family of 6

And as I am sure you can imagine, with a family of six, certain expenses go up. But of course, as you know, Aaron and I are always looking for ways to spend less, and we’ve discovered a few new tips and tricks to keep things affordable.

Whether you have a family of six or a party of one, these tips should help you keep more money in your pocket without making you feel like you’re giving up on all the fun.

  1. Use reward credit cards whenever possible. We know Dave Ramsey would disagree, but if you are living by your budget and making financially responsible decisions, reward credit cards can be a great way to score free hotel rooms and free air travel for dollars you would have to spend anyway. We have used an IHG rewards credit card and have a Southwest and Hilton Hotels card that we are currently using to stock up on free rooms and travel. Just make sure you pay off the full balance each month so you don’t get charged interest.

Sign up for your own Southwest Rapid Rewards Card using our affiliate link and you’ll earn 40,000 points when you spend your first $1000 on purchases in your first three months.

  1. Eat meals at home. Eating at a restaurant is CRAZY expensive with a family of six – especially when two of those people are pre-teen boys. Our family loves to go out to eat and order in, so this is one area we can sometimes go over on in terms of budget. But we prioritize eating at home and aim to eat at restaurants just once per week. To keep costs down even further we always keep an eye out for coupons to our favorite restaurants and save our receipts. If you scan them with the CoinOut app, you’ll get a few cents back after every meal. Fetch Rewards has also started giving you points for scanned restaurant receipts which you can turn around and use to redeem gift cards.
  2. Skip the theater and host your own movie night at home (or find a less expensive theater). Even before COVID-19, our family preferred hosting our own movie nights at home. We pop popcorn, watch a movie on Disney+ or occasionally rent one. Going to the movies had gotten REALLY expensive – especially as a family of six! But when theater’s do eventually reopen, we’ve found that smaller theaters often charge a fraction of the price to attend a show. For example, the Crystal Theater in Crystal, MI is one we’ve discovered to be much more affordable and has a pretty current line up for us to enjoy when we do want that movie-going experience.
  3. Use money saving apps. I (Kati) currently have 13 money saving apps on my phone. These range from cash back apps I use while grocery shopping to games that pay me for playing with gift cards. It may sound like a lot, but they are so easy to use – often just scanning my receipts when I get home from the store. Last year, I cashed out over $500 in cash and gift cards.
  4. Shop for birthdays and holidays throughout the year. In 2019 we stumbled on an amazing clearance sale in early January and were able to stock up on ~50% of our gifts for the year. I’m not going to lie though, this takes a bit of planning and thinking ahead. But if you can keep an eye out for a good deal and keep in mind who you need to shop for, this can be a great way to stay within your gift budget AND give some pretty great gifts for birthdays, Christmas and other celebrations too.
  5. Consider getting a membership to your local museums and zoos. This is one of my favorite travel hacks – most museums and zoos offer reciprocal memberships to other zoos and museums, which means you can go to a lot of them across the country for free or at a reduced rate. We were planning a spring break trip to Gatlinburg before COVID-19 hit and planned to visit the zoo in Knoxville. With our membership here at our local zoo, we would have gotten 50% off our general admission. Way more affordable than many of the excursions around.
  6. Visit the library to take advantage of FREE books, activities and more. The library is one of my favorite places because its such a great resource for every single person in a community. In fact, I (Kati) am honored to serve on the board of our local library system, the Chippewa River District Library. If you haven’t been to your local library in awhile, you might be surprised to find that they don’t just offer books for you to borrow, but STEM kits and other educational resources too – including digital ones you might be able to take advantage of even if your library is closed right now. When at the library, be sure to check out their calendar of events – there are always a lot of fun free ways to spend time together at the library.
  7. Keep an eye out for FREE family friendly activities in your local community or offered online. Follow local community pages on Facebook or keep up with our posts for events and activities that are easy on the wallet. This is a great way to not waste the weekend and have fun with others whether in person or remotely.
  8. Shop for gently used kids clothes at resale shops or consider setting up a clothing swap event with a local moms group. Kids grow through clothes SO fast and it makes little sense to spend a lot of money on something they will wear for such a short period of time. We’ve had great success finding clothes for our kids at resale shops. You may also save money by connecting with a local moms group and setting up a clothing swap event either in person or virtually. Everyone brings their gently used clothes that their kids have grown out of and swaps them for clothes their kids need now.
  9. Ditch the paper towel. If your kids are like ours, they spill things… a lot. One way to save a little extra cash? Ditch the paper towels for regular towels. Reuse them for all the spills and save a little money in the process.

We’re still figuring out how to make the most of our budget now that our family has grown. What are your favorite family-friendly money saving tips?

Five Ways to Stop Spending and Start Saving Money Today

by

Who doesn’t love a good deal? Finding ways to save money on items you need is one thing, but its super easy to end up spending more because it seems like you’re spending less.

Stop Spending Money and Start Saving Money

Even when we didn’t take our finances too seriously, it never felt like we lived extravagantly. Instead, we found ourselves spending our money on little things we probably didn’t even really need. I say that because I can’t even remember what we bought or how we spent our money. It definitely wasn’t on extravagant big ticket items. No, our money got eaten up by small purchases – a movie we found on sale while shopping for groceries – an extra meal (or two!) out at a restaurant – or immediate purchases on items we found on sale or “for a good deal.”

There’s nothing wrong with enjoying a meal out or taking advantage of a good deal – but only if you can afford it or if it actually helps keep more money in your pocket.

We put a stop to our extra spending by implementing the following:

Shopping at an actual grocery store. One of the first changes we made was to shop at an actual grocery store – not an everything store. This dramatically reduced our weekly grocery bill because we weren’t adding things we didn’t really need to our cart. Most of those items were cheap items we didn’t need anyways and by not having to pass them in the aisles, we were able to drastically reduce our weekly spending with this small change.

Create a plan for each dollar you have. If you don’t have a plan for every dollar in your budget, chances are you’ll spend more. By giving your money a purpose, its much more challenging to use it for other things – you know it has an important role to play in the goals you’ve set.

Buy less, do more. Its tempting to think that you need more stuff to enjoy life more. We’ve found the opposite to be the case. Instead, we find that there are plenty of activities our family can do together that either cost very little or nothing at all. From dance parties to walks, we enjoy spending time together more than just getting stuff.

Related: Free Family Fun Events in Mid-Michigan this December

Delay gratification. We live in a world where its easy to spend money and there are so many tempting ways to use it. From items we know we’d love to have to experiences we know we’d enjoy, its never hard to give your money away. But sometimes we may find that something shiny and new is just that – shiny and new. And when we slow down to determine whether its really worth the investment, the answer might not always be yes. Give yourself a set amount of time to wait before you spend your money. If you still want the item or feel it would be a worthy investment of your dollar, go for it.

Ask yourself this simple question. Will this add value to my life? This question can help you determine whether the purchase is an investment in your life or simply a “whim” purchase. Both purchases are completely fine and we all make them; however, if you are looking to reduce your spending, pay off debt, or live within your means, it may be a question worth asking to ensure that what you spend impacts your life in a positive way.

What strategies have you implemented to spend less and live more? We’d love to hear all about it!